Musée national de la Marine

Integrating classical collections with spectacular scenography, sculptural elements and state-of-the-art technology, the new Musée national de la Marine brings the power of the sea to Paris. One of the world’s oldest maritime museums, the Musée aimed to become a visitor experience that engages the general public, especially younger visitors, with French heritage and contemporary maritime issues. Situated within the historic Palais de Chaillot in the heart of Paris, Casson Mann has transformed this museum into a bold visitor experience, where audiences can encounter maritime stories that feel fresh, personal, and relevant to their lives.

Casson Mann’s scheme includes huge, sculptural ‘landmarks’ that complement the heritage architecture and draw visitors through the galleries. Visitors begin the experience passing beneath a huge ship’s hull, where they enjoy an immersive film about the sea. Further landmarks punctuate their route – a stack of shipping containers with one container suspended, the gilded ornamentation from La Réale, and a 20m-long, 8m-high wave, animated by a spectacular projection. These installations act as chapter markers: they create separation between thematic galleries without the use of walls, minimising touchpoints that might disrupt the building’s curved interior. Physically and dynamically immersive, the landmarks serve to make this museum truly impactful for a 21st-century audience.

The visitor journey recalls a sea voyage through galleries which cover France’s maritime heritage, past and present, from ship models and consumerism to navigation, storms and maritime sculpture. The lighting follows the arc of a wave and subtly accentuates the maritime narrative. Visitors move from a daylit space to atmospheric low light, and then to dramatic lighting with lighthouse lenses, large-scale paintings and the wave projection which explores storms at sea. Finally, in the end pavilion, visitors return to calm lighting which gives them a sense of the outside world.

Emotional and multisensory moments prompt audiences to consider their personal relationship to the ocean. Olfactory exhibits and soundscapes cut visitors off from the outside world and foster their total immersion in each maritime environment: within the Wave landmark, we complement the visual drama of the wave projection with a subtle soundscape that captures the deep rumble of the sea and the smell of oil, evoking the impact of spillages.

The museum is peppered with interactives which carry engaging stories and aim to make the maritime world accessible. The Consumerism gallery, identifiable by its shipping container installation, has one container designed as an interactive fishmonger’s stall; this interactive stall combines digital and touch objects to educate consumers on making thoughtful choices when buying fish. The Art of Navigation gallery is a jewel-box of finely-engineered maritime devices, which visitors can appreciate more deeply after engaging with the digital and physical ‘Sextant’ interactive. Visitors move the physical sextant model to trigger action on the screen and learn how sextants are used to find one’s bearings at sea.

Casson Mann worked with the museum to pioneer a new accessibility model that offers visitors multiple ways to access the stories, regardless of their physical, visual, hearing, or intellectual abilities. There are eight mediation tables that incorporate touch objects, screens with audio descriptions, translation into FSL (French Sign Language) and FALC (Easy to Read and Understand) texts, and braille texts. Displays are flexible to facilitate ‘toned-down’ time slots, during which sound, visual media and lighting are reduced for the comfort of more sensitive visitors.